Sound levels in cinema
01–23–2019
Theatrical audio mixes differ from broadcast, disc, and online audio mixes in a
number of ways. When delivering your files for DCP creation, it’s important to know
what kind of a mix you have and how that will affect its perception in a theatrical
environment.
Sample Peak meter vs. Loudness Meter
If you were to ask most people to visualize loudness, chances are they would think of
audio meters rising and falling with the intensity of a track. The meters most of us
are intimately familiar with are sample peak meters. Sample peak meters are the
visual reference used to make sure that audio stays within the technical constraints
of our audio track. In the same way luminance is measured on a scale of 0–100 in
terms of color grading, sample peak meters more or less provide a measure for how
much audio data can be fit in a track. Try as you might to “take it to 11”, you cannot
exceed these limits and attempting to do so will result in distortion of your mix. We
call this peaking.
